Fr. Adrien Alphonse M. Rasset, scj
Introduction: A Letter from Reverend Father Modeste to E.J. Herr
"Reims, April 23, 1880
Dear Abbé,
You already know the way I view the extraordinary communications made to the Sister in the Franciscan convent. I have an inner conviction that they can only come from Our Lord Himself. They are obviously stamped with the sign of the divine; and the holiness of the Sister is so much in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel, that it does not seem to me that she can have been exposed to illusions from the devil, nor to those of self-love. If, therefore, Our Lord has expressed Himself on the subject of your vocation, there is no better thing to do than to respond to His appeal. Is it not to make you an Oblate of His divine Heart that He has so far prevented you from entering our Company, in spite of your repeated requests? Therefore, dear abbé, tell yourself, joining voices with St. Peter: 'In verbo tuo laxabo rete' (cf. Lk 5:5), and together with this holy Apostle rejoice in having obeyed the voice of Jesus Christ.
The work of the Oblates of the Heart of Jesus is magnificent. When you know what their special objective is you will agree with me. And later, when you have to fulfill the holy ministry, you will understand just how very necessary it is.
Courage therefore, dear abbé. Become a holy Oblate of the Heart of Jesus, who condescended to chose you Himself for this holy vocation which is all love and immolation.
United with you in your good prayers,
Yours devotedly in the Holy Hearts of Jesus, Mary and St. Joseph.
A. Modeste S.J.
My affectionate regards to your Reverend Father Superior".
(B21/3.19; inv. 397.02)
Letter from Father Rasset to the novice Ernest (Jacques) Herr
"June 22, 1881
Dearly Beloved Brother in Corde Jesu,
It may be useful to you to have the resumé of the facts and the providential circumstances which have convinced me that God has united us for a supernatural task. My poor self will be at stake and you will calculate what it is worth.
I have always thought that the first job to be done is that of the sanctification of the clergy. At the seminary, in my time, the dominant idea was that a special association was needed; one which had the kind of life which would permit the priest to achieve the holy ministry without suffering the disadvantages which we have become aware of. I would like to say that speaking of this need one evening with Msgr. Elliat, today the Curé of Clastres, I went into a kind of trance which made a deep impression on him. We agreed together with some friends to pray every day for the creation of this Work; the most fervent participants in the project have died in a way which was, to say the least, surprising (Carlier, Vrevins, Brodin, Messager).
When I left the seminary the Reverend Father de Chazournes, S.J., strongly advised me to try to perform the Exercises under the guidance of Fr. Modeste: "The man", he said, "who has the greatest understanding of the spirit of these Exercises and has supernatural discernment". This worthy father, whom I sought many times over ten years, always escaped me when I thought that I had finally caught up with him. In the end I learned details about him which, in my opinion, crown him with the halo of holiness, and some months later I was told that he had died. I said the De Profundis for him, weeping. You can understand how I had been prepared to obey him blindly when I thought I was finally going to meet him in the monastery on the feast of the Sacred Heart, the day after my arrival at Saint Quentin.
You know about his decision in Reims, which is where I went to try and find him. Even though he didn't know anything beforehand he had argued against our idea at first. He appeared to think that the foundation of this Congregation, which was to become a religious order, was unprecedented, extraordinary, and impossible. Then, after having presented all the difficulties and the reasons for mistrusting any method that was so far outside of the norm, he suddenly said: "There is no room for doubt here and you must follow the way which has been laid down for you. Our Lord will take it upon Himself to make His work a success!"
How did I come to Saint Quentin? It started during the Congress of Liesse in the month of March 1875. At the first appearance of Msgr. Dehon I had this sudden and powerful conviction that not only was it possible for our former project for the seminary to be realized, but that he was the man to do it. I decided that I would broach the subject to him. In 1877 I attended the Congress of Saint Quentin. When I happened to meet Msgr. Dehon in the street he said "I have a lot of things I particularly want to say to you". I made off so quickly that I didn't even see the bishops, the cardinal or the ceremonies of the pilgrimage. It was as if he had said to me "You must come to the Patronage to replace me while I am doing something else". In all this there was nothing more than a presentiment, but it was so strong that I felt as if it was crushing me so I fled.
The project for the Oblates for the Heart of Jesus was formed on the first of February 1878. Our Lord said to Sister Mary Ignatius that he wanted victim priests, and to the objection: Where are we to find such men?, He replied: "All you need to do is leave it to me. I will send them". So, on February 2, or thereabouts, I wrote to Msgr. Dehon to tell him of my desire to confer with him about an important task. On February 12, at Saint Quentin, he informed me of the great grace which Our Lord had been granting to the Convent of Franciscan nuns. On March 18 I wrote to him of my firmly resolved desire and, sending my request to Monseigneur, I burnt my bridges by announcing to him my determination to enter a religious order.
In the month of June (the 3rd), Msgr. Dehon, today our dear Superior, read me some pages which you know well and I remember that I said coldly to him: "It was not a woman who found that". Since I had already known about it before hand there was, at that time, no reason for me to speak in any other way. In these revelations there are certainly some feminine details, clouds which clearly reveal the channel through which these communications have passed. But there is one page which is capable of astounding you by its depth.
On June 16, the anniversary of the revelation of the Sacred Heart, I pleaded that I would have a change of heart, but it seemed to be impossible. I assure you that my interior disappointment and sorrow were great when I saw that everything was useless. I had asked for one single sign since I had now been at Saint Quentin for two months and I was told that the death of this unfortunate chap, whom I had tried so many times, in vain, to catch up with, had been extremely normal. But a year later, the very day after I made my first vows, I learned that my prayers had been answered beyond my wildest dreams. That was for me, at least, a confirmation of the rightness of this project.
Msgr. Dehon had mentioned only one miraculous event as proof of the sanctity of the work: the sickness of Sister Mary Ignatius and her mystical death; a death for which he had given her extreme unction. Now I don't know why I ever had any doubts about the supernatural character of her recovery, since Msgr. Dehon affirmed it; he to whom it was so important not to let himself be deceived.
I myself have another example of the same kind. I came to Saint Quentin, in spite of the fact that I knew about the hemorrhages which Msgr. Dehon was so attentive to keep a secret. I told myself that in the eyes of God I would at least have the merit of having desired to try to do something of what he had wanted me to do. And if Msgr. Dehon died, at least he would not take the regret of not having found anyone to the grave with him. I knew then that Dr. Demouchaux was saying, at the local hospital and in the town, that Leo did not have more than three months left to live, that he was in the second stage of consumption and that it was already in a very advanced stage. You know about the events at the Congress at Soissons where he was filling basins with his blood.
In April 1879 it seemed to me that he was a lost man. I have seen a great number of sick people and I have studied ailments of the chest enough to make statements with a certain security. And the proof of this is that I did not make any mistakes regarding the four Sisters in the convent who died, I knew what would happen to them since the beginning of their illness.
It was in this period that Sister Mary of Jesus made her heroic offering. For me, so far, there is hardly anything that has been more proven than this, but still I was certain that Msgr. Dehon would be dead by the winter of 1879. In the meantime a prediction was fulfilled: it had been promised that a certain number of disciples would come, and they came. The reason why I remember this so clearly is that the ex-brother Jean had so often said: "Nobody will come".
I had had many interior objections to the work, and even to the spirit of the work. But the Reverend Father Betrand, of Notre Dame de Liesse, of whom the Curé of Ars used to say: "He is a saint", had responded in advance to all the difficulties, as if he had read the future and had revelations. If it was necessary to have someone play the devil's advocate, nobody could be more suitable for it than myself. And so, with the intention of first spending some days in prayer to confirm that my decision was the correct one, I picked up my pen and started to write my strong opposition down on paper. I wrote three pages of what I saw as objections, derived at from the incidents that had happened, and I ended up by throwing myself on my knees to make a vow to help Msgr. Dehon in all of his projects. It was a vow which, since it was to the profit of a third person, I could never be released from. Only if it were to involve me in sin could I be released from honoring this obligation.
From the time I was at Saint Quentin my strongest argument against the work was that I was the first person to be involved and called to be influential. Every one of those called carries this objection, as big as a mountain, in himself and for himself. One must be able to see the fruits: of those who are here there is one who would certainly have been damned if he had not come, there is another who would have been in prison and would have lost faith, etc. etc. Wonders of grace and even miracles were announced to us for the future. Was it crazy to hope for it? When I celebrated the Holy Mass in the convent for the first time, Sister Mary Ignatius, without my saying anything nor giving any outward sign, knew that I had reparation as my intention. Since that time I believe I have more than once had proof that she knew my innermost thoughts.
A priest who passed for being pius and fervent used to speak against the work. There were some very severe words from Our Lord with regard to this and I was greatly scandalized: "So", I said to myself, "here is proof of the intervention of the devil. He gets angry if he is contradicted". I now have proof that this unfortunate man (today, I believe, in a better life) was a blundering fool, not to say an idiot. He owes it to the intervention of Sister Mary Ignatius that he did not go to hell. I cannot let anyone even suspect what it was about, but after having learned this secret story, which I never knew in its entirety and of which only I possess certain details which cry out for tears of reparation, I tell you that I no longer have sufficient freedom to contradict Sister Mary Ignatius regarding what she says. I could, if necessary, reveal these things because it was not a question of something heard in confession.
I was very distressed to find myself designated as confessor to the convent. The one confession that I did not want to hear was that of Sister Mary Ignatius (Now I think that it was she herself who came to me first). I had let it be known and understood that I was insistent about not exercising this function. That was a great misfortune! I now believe that the scandal of Marie Hachet would never have taken place if I had been her confessor. I knew about her non-observance of the rules of poverty and obedience and I incautiously thought that she would confess these lapses.
Three years ago, as a paying guest at the convent, there was a woman, Madam Mathieu, who was legally separated from her husband, the Mayor of Châlons St. Marne. Our Lord spoke to Sister Mary Ignatius and said: "I want these two hearts to be united". For 18 months I watched the action of grace on this soul which had been given up to external vanity and worldliness. Her husband answered the letters which were written to him saying that he did not want to have anything more to do with her; it looked as if their getting back together again was impossible. For this poor woman each of the deaths which took place in the convent was a resurrection of the spirit of her baptism and, in the end, I looked upon her as a saint. One fine day, against all probability, Monsieur Mathieu came to see his wife. Some weeks later he had small pox; she looked after him devotedly and peace was assured. The predicted union of these hearts was fulfilled.
All the people who submitted blindly to the influence of Sister Mary Ignatius made rapid progress in all the virtues. The Sisters who, on the contrary, had an aversion to her, took a bad path.
Our Lord sometimes formed shattering judgements about certain Sisters and they ended up leaving the convent. I cannot tell you how much I worried about this matter. In the end I can affirm these judgements were right (I am speaking in the light of the external evidence which I had). I had, on two different occasions, received two communications about the patronage. The last one, which seemed to contradict the preceding ones, distressed me terribly and filled me with doubts. It turned out that Sister Mary Ignatius was right: a gentlemen, whom I had thought to be a good Christian, was revealed as a miserable hypocrite.
Having once had proof that the Sister could read my innermost thoughts, I blindly accepted two other communications which, to me, did not seem to have any basis.
Several times, when I knew what the Sister was thinking about such and such a person, I was greatly impressed to see that my judgement had been in conformity with hers. I had stated, the way I usually did, that I had the care of men and of consciences, and that Sister Mary Ignatius often made pronunciations about people whom she had never seen. But I do not know of one single case when she made a mistake in what she discerned.
Three examples, which I would like to tell you about, terrified me. They concern people who at first were very active about the Work to be founded but then backed out: one is heading straight for hell with lowered head, the other has followed the road to drunkenness, the third to another kind of scandal. If they had followed their first impulses they would be on a better path.
Those who are in the Work are not saints, but they are all in a better state than they were before, and it is not certain that they would have been saved if they had not taken this step.
Having only been drawn to the Company of Jesus and, with regard to spirituality, appreciating only their spirit and their Rule, I retained, for a long time, a lively and distressing resentment against the resistance which had hindered the establishment of the 3rd year at Saint Quentin. And, if I had known that Msgr. Dehon was going to be there for some definite purpose, I would never have gone to join him. Events have shown that the glory of God lost nothing because the establishment of this 3rd year did not happen: it would have been useless because of the various expulsions that followed. Sister Mary Ignatius had announced the persecution and the destruction of establishments. On the day of the feast of St. Ignatius, 1879, Our Lord told her that He was going to grant the Company a reprieve, and on that very day the Senate voted a favorable amendment. What spirit could have whispered that to her?
She also knew that my father was going to die and prayed for him during his last days. She knew the hour of his death. It is true that she did not communicate this knowledge until after somebody had spoken of it, but instead of making me doubt her, my knowledge of the anxiety she always had of letting people know of her communications confirmed my faith in the spirit that was guiding her. To call in doubt her witness would not be merely accusing her of illusions, but of lying and of the desire to appear a saint. This I could never do without gravely sinning in view of what I knew of the candor, the simplicity and the humility of this soul.
She strongly disliked various people, and when it was a question of herself she had such scorn and hatred against this creature whom she thought was delaying the work of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that she could not even express it.
I encountered that only one other time: in the Abbé P..., a priest whom Fr. Ignatius Schwindenhammer put me in touch with and who obtained from Our Lord a miracle of the first order as a proof of His will concerning a work similar to that at Saint Quentin.
From the month of June 1878 Sister Marie de la Croix, a religious who bore the stigmata, had been having transports and ineffable raptures whenever someone spoke to her about the work at Saint Quentin. She continued to maintain to Abbé P. that this was the same work that he was talking about. Our Lord said the same thing to Abbé P., in my presence, when we were before the Holy Sacrament exposed at Notre Dame des Victoires. The very Reverend Father Ignatius Schwindenhammer, whom we remember with immense sadness, told me that our work was the secret thought which the Venerable Father Libermann had not been able to accomplish. He said that it would most probably be founded because the wind of heaven was blowing in that direction.
The Very Reverend Father Ignatius Schwindenhammer, as General of the St. Esprit, had had information collected on Msgr. Dehon and on the community of Sisters at Alsace, and in 1879 he had no confidence in the success of the project, in spite of the proofs which Abbé P. and Sister Marie de la Croix were providing him with. The letters of Sister Mary Ignatius did not convince him (he did not believe in the discretion or the prudence of Msgr. Dehon!). In the month of May 1880, being in great pain, he had me called to his room to show me the Rules for the reparatory priests and the encouragement that had been received on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII, who had said: "I have been wishing for this work for fifteen years". The Very Reverend Father Schwindenhammer had encouraged me to take my vows for a year, in spite of the fact that he had not believed that things would end in success. This time, however, he assured me that the finger of God was there and that one day the work of the Reparatory Priests and that of the Oblates of the Heart of Jesus would join together to make them one single Order: The Order of the Sacred Heart. He encouraged me to pray hard and to get the Venerable Libermann to pray. Fr. Libermann went to see Sister Marie de la Croix and she told him to labor for this work, because it is for this reason that a life had been extended by one year.
We have had, since then, information provided my Msgr. Captier: the prophesies made to him over a period of seven years concerning the Order of the Sacred Heart, his prophesy from the pulpit, confirmed by a miracle of bilocation and the knowledge of people's private thoughts.
Does all this form an absolute, juridical proof on which one can base a canonical judgement? I do not think so. That is why I still avidly seize upon the slightest confirmation of the work of the Oblates of the Heart of Jesus. We recently had a prediction of the imminent death of Msgr. Vilfort's stepmother. Another incident happened when Msgr. Dessons, appointed Vicar of Vailly, came to the convent and, against all credibility, Sister Mary Ignatius had already announced that he would very soon be coming to the Sacred Heart. She started to laugh when someone asked her to pray about this, saying that it had all been settled already.
When Fr. Claude was given to us on the feast of the Annunciation, I had already been trying to find the means to lead him to us. He himself told me of his plan to embrace the ecclesial life, without yet daring to hint that he was in fact longing for the Sacred Heart. It was later that he told us all about it. I can only let this speak for itself.
With regard to Fr. Pierre of the Nativity, I was trembling all over when I expressed my desire to see him join us. He answered me with a smile that he had already determined to do so, but he didn't think that he would be free until he was 30 years old. His joy was enormous when he learned that he could come immediately.
Since then I have also recommended another young man who was to be Fr. Clement Joseph. I made this recommendation on the very day that he had requested to become part of the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, something which I had not dared to propose to him. Over a period of six months, every Sunday, I sent ten children from the Patronage to the care of the convent. I was afraid I would be ridiculed: all of these children became pius people from that time on.
One day Fr. Joseph was giving Holy Communion at the convent. Our Lord told the Sister that Fr. Joseph had been saved at last. However, a few minutes later He told her: "The devil has got him again". Fr. Joseph confessed this to me saying: "That was true".
What can I add to all this? There are, in the revelations of Sister Mary Ignatius, entire pages of Holy Scripture quoted in Latin, but she had never been able to read it. I myself need a concordance to find these texts, for example those from Isaiah. There were moments when this poor young woman did not even remember her Confiteor any more. I remember that on August 2, 1879, when I was giving communion to Sister Mary of Jesus when she was sick, she mangled the words so much that it was a veritable pot-pourri of impossible Latin.
After all these events I can no longer prevent myself from avowing that I am impressed and that I no longer feel free to speak against the Work, much less back out of it. If we are laboring under an illusion then I deserve great pity, because my reaction to learning that would be terrible. It would make me accuse myself of being deceived in many things pertaining to the great servants of God, Blessed Marguerite Marie, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Brigitte, etc.
You can decide after reading what happened to me in the month of August 1879. I was bringing Sister Mary Ignatius' nephew to her in order to have a pretext to talk with her. I asked her to scold him a bit and to teach him this prayer in German "Oh my Good Mother, save me from mortal sin". She looked at me, joined her hands together and said: "But vanting to be priest, das ist nicht genug". Then, half in French, half in German dialect, she started to talk to her little Joseph and tell him that a priest must avoid all kinds of sin even the littlest of venial sins, that a priest must be the enemy of sin. I wanted to hold her limpid gaze but it was impossible. And, in order to overcome the awkwardness of the moment, I stroked Joseph, who was not at all friendly towards me. His aunt most gently reproved him, which hardly made me feel any better. I broke up the meeting and went to prostrate myself before the Holy Sacrament. I sobbed and dissolved in tears, as if I had a fountain in my heart, and I cried out:
"Oh, if only we priests could have the hatred of sin that this poor Sister has. If at least from the pulpit, in the confessional, we could speak with such conviction, such emphasis. Ah! If only I could find such interior energy in the acts of my ministry and in my exercises of piety!"
It would be like an ice cold shower for me to be forced to credit my imagination with the interior pain which I felt at that moment; because it would mean that everything that I had felt of love for God and horror for myself was worthless.
Pray rather, dearly beloved brother in Corde Jesu, for this wretched creature who writes these words, that there may be a renewal of such imaginings so that I may be a useful brother to you.
Fr. Alph.
(B37.l h l; inv.651.01)